I recently published my debut novel, The Winds of Khalakovo. I also recently finished the first draft of the second novel in The Lays of Anuskaya trilogy, so when Aidan brought up the possibility of a guest post, one of the things I immediately thought of was talking a bit about the differences in writing Book 2 vs. Book 1.
I had been wary of writing the second novel in a series for quite some time. That sounds strange, even to my ear, but it’s true. I didn’t used to think this way. When I first starting writing seriously, ten years ago or so, I thought a sequel would be a natural extension of the first book, and in many ways that’s true, but as I grew in my craft and began to go to conventions and get advice about writing a sequel, I grew … not worried, but certainly concerned.
Why? Well, there are a few things going on here.
First of all, you don’t want to be complacent. The Winds of Khalakovo was my first published book. Not my first book, mind you (I have a trunk filled with three others), but the first one I’d published. By the time Night Shade Books accepted Winds for publication, it had been workshopped and critiqued a number of times. It was tight, but it had taken a lot of energy from a lot of people (not just me).
The Straits of Galahesh, the second book in the trilogy, was a completely different story (pun not intended but cheekily left in place). I had a lot less time to get it ready. It took me about 2.5 years to reach the final draft of Winds, and I had only ten months go get the first draft of Straits ready for first submission. Now, in some ways I’m comparing apples to oranges here. My editor knew that the draft for the second book wouldn’t be as polished as the first, and he was there to help me if I needed help along the way. Plus I had the momentum from Book 1 going for me—the characters and the world were largely going to be the same.
But still, it’s a lot of pressure, and I definitely felt it. I needed to get 20,000 words written per month, and that didn’t leave much room for backtracking if I took a wrong path along the way. So one of the things I noticed was that I got better (out of necessity) at extrapolating from plot ideas to see if they would lead down a dead end. Sure, I was a better writer, and so some of that is a natural progression of learning the craft, but I took time to actively work things through in my head, more than I had in the first book, to make sure I could keep forging ahead.
Beyond the simple restrictions of time and the pressure that brings, I was also very conscious of quality. Have you seen “Project,” from Tales of Mere Existence? Take a look. It’s not only brilliant, it perfectly captures the storm of emotions that a writer (or any artist, I imagine) goes through when trying to follow up on a successful project.
As an aside, I think “Project” applies equally to sequels as it does to brand new projects, but in subtly different ways. But I digress…
The net of it was that I was very proud of Winds, and I didn’t want to let my readers down by coming up with something that didn’t live up to their expectations after reading it. It was quite a roller-coaster ride, and while there were many parallels with the writing of Winds, there were two striking differences. First, there was now something for people to compare Straits to: namely, Winds. I didn’t want to take a dip in quality and disappoint myself and my readers. Second, the same emotions from Book 1 were all still present—excitement, fear, pride, despair—only massively compressed since I needed to produce this draft quickly and well.
One thing that didn’t really strike home until I was reaching the end of Straits was just how hard it was to extrapolate from Winds. I’d concluded things fairly neatly in Winds, but of course left several things unresolved for the rest of the trilogy. Ever heard the term the muddle in the middle? It refers to the difficulty of expanding on the promises you made to the reader in the opening of the story, expanding on them, and then eventually reining them in so that you can work toward a smash-up ending. The middle is a difficult time in a book because there are so many swirling and competing possibilities. Well, the second book in a trilogy is the middle of that larger arc. It’s the muddle in the middle on steroids. It was a tough thing to expand on so much from Book 1 and pull the threads in in a satisfying way while still leaving things unresolved for the climactic ending in Book 3.
As another small aside, it boggles my mind when I think of what George R.R. Martin has accomplished with A Song of Ice and Fire. It’s no wonder he takes his time in the writing of his books. They’re ten times more complicated than my books are, and I have trouble keeping my stuff strait. All I can say to that is that I think he’s already given us five wonderful books to cherish (yes, it’s a given for me that A Dance with Dragons is going to rule), and I hope he takes whatever time he needs for the rest.
I’ve spoken a lot about negative and niggly concerns, but there were a lot of positives as well. It was lovely to return to the world of Winds. It was like picking up with old friends right where I left off, like putting on my favorite, worn-in pair of sneakers, like sitting in my favorite chair. It was nice. As is diving into Book 3 (which I’ve only just begun).
I also realized during the course of the book that time was ticking. I wouldn’t be writing in this world forever. In fact, I’m not sure I’ll visit again after writing this trilogy. This sounds like a negative, but I don’t mean it that way. There was a strong sense of nostalgia that arose, and (I’m hoping dearly that this doesn’t sound egocentric; it’s not meant that way) it was actually touching to relate to my own writing in this way. We can’t help but love our characters, yes? It was nice to connect with those emotions. It was reassuring to me that I loved these characters I was writing about.
For all the sense of familiarity I had with Straits, though, I didn’t want to be complacent about the characters or the world. To really bring this story home for the readers, I needed to push, both in terms of the parts of the world they experienced and the growth and change in the characters. So, while I’m a fairly plot driven guy, I certainly want to make the characters real people with real concerns, and that means they change over time, either by circumstance or age or both. And so, while doing this, I was both pleased and surprised by the things I discovered in the setting, the cultures, the characters, and their beliefs.
Thanks very much to Aidan for the opportunity to drop by A Dribble of Ink. It was a lot of fun to ruminate, and I hope to stop by again soon.
Written by Bradley P. Beaulieu
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Excellent and lucid post, Brad. I’m trying to write a second novel in a series myself, and it’s proving difficult going for exactly the reasons you elucidated. Questions plague me: is this going to be as good, as engaging, and as tight as the first novel? Are the characters growing? Am I deepening the reader’s sense of the world? Do I try and give them more of exactly what they loved in The Grind Show, or do I challenge them be delving deeper into things?
I just roared through the first 10,000 words, but then stumbled to a halt, hesitated, and have decided to start from scratch and with greater care. So thanks for the post–it’s great to hear that others have had the same issues and doubts!
Thanks, Brad. I’ve been curious as to how you are going to expand our view of the world. And yes, I definitely get the sense from Winds you are a plot writer…
Thanks for the note, Phil, and goo luck with your own Book 2. It’s definitely a grind, isn’t it? And while it’s painful to throw words away, sometimes it can be very liberating, because you come back to the story with a much cleared vision of where you’re headed.
Paul, yeah, I do try hard to drive plot through character, but I find myself thinking more about cool stuff that could happen than I do “what would Nikandr do now.” I don’t think that’s necessarily bad as long as I’m diligent about working it through completely to make it consistent with the characters, the culture, the backstory, etc.
Oh, I didn’t mean to slight your characterization or world building in any way!
[…] I got to talking with Aidan Moher over at A Dribble of Ink a while back, and he kindly invited me to do a couple guest posts on his blog. The first of them is up now. […]
I didn’t take it that way, Paul. No troubles. I was just digging into my process a bit.
The second book in a series is an interesting issue. I’m currently working on mine as well. Now, I’d thought I’d gotten around the issue by first drafting the novels which come after the first so I would have a better Idea where I was going with the story.
But… Not so fast, as I was redrafting the first book, new subtexts started to show up, and when I looked at the stories that followed, I found what I’d added with my first novel, would need carry through with them.
I do of course, still have the advantage of structure, but a good chunk of the second book changes between the second and third draft because of how I realized I could use it to expand on how I presented the characters in the first.
It’s a lot more work than I was expecting, but It looks like the result will be much more compelling, and add significantly more depth to my main character than I had originally expected. Interesting how that works.
[…] Interview: “On Writing the Second Novel” by Bradley P. Beaulieu […]
I know I’m a little late to the game here, but I just found your post since I’m working on the same issue–writing my second novel in a series. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of information out there about this topic. I agree that it’s harder than I expected. The one way I think I was helped was that I saw the entire trilogy in my head before I started writing the first book. This way I didn’t have to struggle for a plot for the next two books. I already knew what was going to happen. Thanks for sharing your experience.
[…] found this guest blog post from Bradley P. Beaulieu about his experience writing a second novel: http://aidanmoher.com/blog/2011/07/articles/guest-post-on-writing-the-second-novel-by-bradley-p-beau…. As I’ve stumbled my way through this process myself, I thought I’d share some of my […]